Identifying the nature of domestic load profile from a

single household electricity consumption measurements.

Item Type Conference paper

Authors Ihbal, Abdel-Baset M.I.; Rajamani, Haile S.; Abd-Alhameed, Raed

A.; Jalboub, Mohamed K.

Citation Ihbal, A. M., Rajamani, H. S., Abd-Alhameed, R. A. and Jalboub,

M. K. (2011). Identifying the nature of domestic load profile from
a single household electricity consumption measurements. In:
The Eighth International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals
& Devices (SSD 2011), Sousse- Tunisia, 22-25 March 2011. IEEE
Catalog Number: CFP1122E-CDR, ISBN:978-1-4577-0411-6/11.

Rights © 2011, IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Ihbal, A. M.,

Rajamani, H. S., Abd-Alhameed, R. A. and Jalboub, M. K. (2011).
Identifying the nature of domestic load profile from a single
household electricity consumption measurements. In: The Eighth
International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices
(SSD 2011), Sousse- Tunisia, 22-25 March 2011. This material
is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of
the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of
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Author(s): Ihbal, A. M., Rajamani, H. S., Abd-Alhameed, R. A. and Jalboub, M. K.

Title: Identifying the nature of domestic load profile from a single household
electricity consumption measurements.
Publication year: 2011
Conference title: The Eight International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals &
Devices (SSD 2011), Sousse- Tunisia, 22-25 March 2011.
Link to original published version:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=5764310
Citation: Ihbal, A. M., Rajamani, H. S., Abd-Alhameed, R. A. and Jalboub, M. K.
(2011). Identifying the nature of domestic load profile from a single household
electricity consumption measurements. In: The Eight International Multi-
Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD 2011), Sousse- Tunisia, 22-25
March 2011. IEEE Catalog Number: CFP1122E-CDR, ISBN:978-1-4577-0411-
6/11.
Copyright statement: © 2011, IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Ihbal, A.
M., Rajamani, H. S., Abd-Alhameed, R. A. and Jalboub, M. K. (2011). Identifying
the nature of domestic load profile from a single household electricity
consumption measurements. In: The Eight International Multi-Conference on
Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD 2011), Sousse- Tunisia, 22-25 March 2011.
This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the
IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of the University of
Bradford's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is
permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or
promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or
redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to pubs-
permissions@ieee.org.
 IDENTIFYING THE NATURE OF DOMESTIC LOAD PROFILE FROM A
SINGLE HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION MEASUREMENTS
A. M. Ihbal, H. S. Rajamani, R.A. Abd-Alhameed and M. K. Jalboub
School of engineering, Design and Technology University of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP, UK
{a.m.i.ihbal, h.s.rajamani , r.a.a.abd, m.k.jalboub}@ Bradford.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
Detailed electricity load profile for domestic building is
an important requirement for the accurate analysis of
demand side management. The use of electrical
appliances within domestic buildings varies significantly
with respect to time, mainly in accordance with the
activity and behaviour of the occupants.
This paper presents results from a monitoring study of
electrical energy consumption profiles for One UK
household (two adults with children).
Measurements for whole household electricity
consumption have been obtained over a period of ten
months. They were all obtained at one minute interval.
Monthly energy consumptions, daily and overall profiles
were derived for this household type from the monitored
data. It is intended that the results presented in this paper
can be used in the quest for a precise forecast method for
electricity consumption for occupants living in the same
type of household in the UK. This will allow greater
confidence in the sizing of, e.g., adopting renewable
energy sources in this type of household. Further
investigation is needed for a large sample of households
to improve the understanding of monitoring high
resolution domestic energy consumption.
Index Terms— Electricity consumption, load profiles
1. INTRODUCTION
The Detailed electricity load profile for domestic building
is an important requirement for the accurate analysis of
demand side management. The use of electrical
appliances within domestic buildings varies significantly
with respect to time, mainly in accordance with the
activity and behaviour of the occupants. The main factors
that determine the Electricity consumption in domestic
buildings are the number and type of various electrical
appliances in the building; and the use of these appliances
by the occupants of the building.
There are numerous ways to obtain time series energy
consumption data. Usually, energy consumption data is
derived from utility bills on a quarterly or monthly basis.
Billing data are sometimes provided as estimated
readings when actual readings of electricity meters are
unavailable, and the billing period is variable. In order to
get more accurate energy consumption data the
alternative is to take the meter reading regularly monthly,
weekly or daily.
Most available information on electricity consumption
in the UK is for a half hourly time resolution, which is the
measure interval for load profile analysis. A half hourly
resolution is satisfactory to show variations in
consumption and is totally suitable for domestic profiles
used for billing. In houses particularly, the consumed
loads can vary each hour of every day, weekdays and
weekends, and for different months of the year, and also
can vary significantly over a few minutes due to the small
number of appliances and types of use. Monitoring can
provide up to date data on electricity consumption of
individual household and the monitoring generally take
two approaches. Monitoring equipment can be used to
record the consumption of individual appliances or of
aggregation of consumption of appliances.
There have been numerous investigations dealing with
domestic electricity consumptions load profiles in the UK
[1-10].
A monitoring campaign was undertaken by Newborough
[1] where the 1 min interval energy demand data of 30
homes were collected in order to modulate electricity
demand emanating from individual dwellings to reduce
the peak demand. A survey data among a sample of more
than 1000 adults has been conducted and a questionnaire
was designed in the south-east of England by Mansouri et
al [2] in order to collect information from consumers
about environment, Ownership of appliances, Usage-
patterns in UK households. Wright and firth [3] described
exploratory analysis of domestic electricity load profiles
measured at a high time resolution of 1 min on eight
dwellings. Abu-Sharkh used high resolution data for one
house and suggests a simple model to produce load
patterns for a set of hypothetical dwellings and
households [4]. A simple method of formulating load
profile (SMLP) for UK domestic buildings was presented
by R. Yao and K.A. Steemers [5]. R. Stokes developed a
domestic lighting demand model that is based on half
hourly data measured for 100 UK homes in the UK [6].
V.Hamidi and F. Li [7] presented a generalized tool to
assess the responsiveness level among domestic
consumers by studying load profiles for different
domestic consumers which are composed of power
consumption of end-use appliances. A measurement of
electrical energy consumption profiles for social sector in
the UK, obtained over a period of 2 years was presented
by Kreutzer [8]. The measurements were all obtained at 5
minute intervals. Annual energy consumptions, daily and
overall profiles were derived for the dwellings from the
data. Yigzaw, et al [9] studied The patterns of electricity
consumption and how occupancy and housing
characteristics affect domestic electricity use for 27
homes in various locations throughout Northern Ireland
(city, town and village). The results of this study showed
that there is a strong correlation between average annual
electricity consumption and floor area. S. Firth, et al [10]
presented results from a monitoring study of the
electricity consumption of a sample of 72 houses UK
domestic buildings recorded on 5 min interval over two
years period.
This paper describes an analysis of data measured at one
minute intervals over a period of ten months for one UK
two adults with children household type. Data is analysed
in detail. Following the description and background of the
data sets, the general characteristics of domestic loads is
discussed, and the effect of time averaging is described.
Further investigation is needed for a large sample of
household to improve the understanding of monitoring
high resolution domestic energy consumption.
2. DATA COLLECTION AND MEASUREMENTS
A typical English terraced three storeys house with a total
floor area of about 100 m2 (excluding basement) was
selected for the electricity consumption monitoring. The
number of occupants in the house is six (two adult and
four children who are of school age). One of the adult is a
full time student, the other one is a part time in the
morning period in order to take care of the children after
school.
The monitoring has taken place during the period Jan
2010 to Oct. 2010 in BD7 area in Bradford, in Northern
England. The house space heating, Domestic Hot Water
(DHW) and cooker have been provided by means of gas.
The whole home electricity consumption has been
measured and monitored at a high resolution; moreover
the consumption patterns of some individual appliances
were monitored at a high resolution (1 min interval). The
data has been collected by using owl wireless energy
monitor which enabled remote downloading of stored
electricity consumption in KWh during 1 minute interval.
The owl wireless monitor uses current transformer
sensing technology to sense a small magnetic field
around the house power cable. It measures the value of
current (A) being passed through the cable and, by
reference to the system voltage (230 V), calculates the
amount of power being used, the quantity of greenhouse
gas emissions and the cost, then transmits this
information as Comma Separated Values (CSV) files
from the Sender Box to a wireless remote monitor on a
wireless frequency of 433MHz, from up to 30 m away
(uninterrupted transmission). The data are transmitted
periodically to individual computer via a USB Receiver
and displayed using OWL Home Energy Monitor
program. The collected data are exported to as CSV file
that can be opened up with spreadsheet type applications.
The data presented are complete ten months files
enclosed over 340,000 individual data values. Due to
missing of some data, the missing data have been
replaced by assumed data that have the same
characteristics (e.g. a missing weekday has been replaced
by another existing weekday data). This replaced data is
marked in the excel file by a different color.
3. HOUSEHOLD LOAD CHARACTERISTICS
According to the UK department of energy and climate
change (DECC), the average domestic electricity
consumption was 4,198 KWh in 2008, which matches to
an average load over the year of about 0.48 KW. In the
UK, the modern houses have a typical peak load of less
than half of which what is catered for according to the
fuse rating of 100A [7].
Line plots are most commonly used to present the time-
series energy data. Fig.1 shows the line plot of mean
daily consumption for electricity consumption in the
monitored house for ten months of 2010. The plot
presents the average (arithmetic mean) electricity
consumption for ten months, complemented be the
maximum and minimum daily electricity use for each
month. The blue line represents the average value, i.e. the
daily mean electricity consumption for each month. The
red line represents the daily minimum value, and the
green line represents the daily maximum value for each
month. From the monthly plot it is possible to extract
information about the annual variation in the mean
energy consumption, and the corresponding maximum
and minimum values. The mean and maximum
consumption in winter months is higher than in summer
months. However, the minimum consumption (which
probably occurs on weekdays) is relatively constant over
the year.
Figure 1. Monthly energy consumption line plot
A similar line plot to monthly periods might be produced
for weekly periods. These are similar plots, but weekly
average, minimum and maximum values for a year will
be calculated instead.
To identify with the variety of electricity demand, the use
of half hourly daily load profiles is more effective in
capturing the variations over the whole day (24 hours).
The x-axis is positioned to one day, 24-hour included 48
data points, one for each half hourly interval (30
minutes), the daily Winter (from Jan. to Mar) and
Summer (from July to Sep) load profiles logged at 1
minute interval are averaged over 30 minutes interval for
weekday and weekend days as shown in fig. 2 (this has
been done in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet). From fig.2, it
can be seen that the base load of the demand occurs
overnight and is mainly from cold appliances, Continuous
appliances and appliances in standby mode. The standby
appliances are actively switched on by the occupant and
their power consumption might not be zero when not in
use (e.g. TV). Furthermore there is no a significant
difference between summer and winter and weekday or
weekend base loads.
The key difference between the weekday and weekend
profiles is the period between 09:00 and 18:00, where the
load during weekend profile is higher because of higher
occupancy.
Figure 2. Daily winter and summer profiles.
Fig.3 presents an example of the total electricity
consumption recorded over a particular day at 1 min and
averaged over 30 minutes intervals, the 1 minutes time
resolution average total power consumption shows a
typical domestic electricity use pattern. During the period
from 00:00 to 07:00 there was a constant cyclical pattern
of power consumption between around 30 W and 60W
which represents the base load. The minimum power
consumption of 30 W represents the power consumption
of the continuous appliances and the appliances in
standby mode. The continual raise up to 60 W was caused
by the cold appliances power consumption. This pattern
would be noted regularly throughout the day. From 07:00
to 09:00 the energy consumption was going up as other
appliances started to be in use.
As there is no one at home for the period from 09:00 to
about 13:30 the base load pattern would be repeated
again. However, as the second adult is working as a part
time (from 8.00 to 13.00). So, the energy consumption is
slightly increased again from the period 13.30 to 15.00.
The evening peak period occurred between about 15:30
(time of return home from school) and 21:00 which are
more pronounced compared to consumed power at other
times that not all occupant are in home during that times.
There were several high peaks (spikes) above 1kw that
were caused by switching on some electrical appliances
with high consumption such as an iron or kettle. The half
hourly load profile is lower and much smoother than the
one minute interval.
Figure 3. Daily load profile at 1 min and 30 min intervals
Because of the measured data records only the total
power consumption of the house, it was difficult to
differentiate the participation of individual appliances.
However, the electricity consumption profile of a
washing machine which has characteristic that its usage
time is fixed as it works with predefined program was
measured as shown in fig.4. The washing machine is
characterized by one heating stage which takes a duration
of about 20 min depending upon the feed water
temperature and the selected washing program. The
length of the wash cycle is ranges from 1h to 1.5h .
3. RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The monthly electricity consumption was calculated. The
results for the ten months are shown in Fig. 5 where each
bar represents the consumption for an individual month.
The lowest monthly electricity consumption was about
193 KWh in Feb. The highest monthly electricity
consumption was about 220 KWh which occurred in Jan.
The average monthly electricity consumption was 205
KWh which is lesser than the UK Government estimate
of average monthly electricity consumption of all UK
houses (340 kWh in 2008) which reflects the fact that the
house space heating, Domestic Hot Water (DHW) and
cooker have been provided by means of gas.
Figure 4. Washing machine electricity consumption profile
Figure 5. Monthly electric energy consumption
4. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper the analysis of electricity consumption data
measured at 1 min interval over a period of ten months
for a sample of one UK household (two adults with
children household) has been described and investigated.
The application of monthly and daily line plots has been
studied. These plots are derived from aggregated data, in
monthly and daily era, and from the use of average daily
electricity consumption values.
The effect of time averaging was considered. The daily
electricity load profile logged at 1 min interval is
averaged over half hourly interval. Visual check of the
plotted load curves for different intervals of 1minute and
30 min obviously shows how spikes are reduced as the
period of time averaging is increased. Although only one
household is investigated, it still provides some useful
information on the electricity usage behaviour. The result
has shown a reasonable agreement compared with the
typical national load profile. The average daily electricity
consumption from the measured data in the winter season
is about 7 KWh, and about 11 KWh from a national load
profile. The profile from monitored data is slightly lower
than the national profile; because the house space heating,
DHW and cooker have been provided by means of gas.
This work is continuing to determine the suitability of
using microgeneration in domestic buildings and
adopting real time pricing scheme on consumer’s
behaviour.
5. REFERENCES
[1] M. Newborough, P. Augood, “Demand-side management
opportunities for the UK domestic sector,” IEE
proceedings generation transmission distribution, vol 146
no. 3, 283-293,1999.
[2] I. Mansouri, M. Newborough, D. Probert, “Energy
Consumption in the UK Households: Impact of Domestic
Electrical Appliances, ” Applied Energy , vol 54 no. 3, pp.
211-285, 1996.
[3] A. Wright and S. Firth, “ The nature of domestic
electricityloads and effects of time averaging on statistics
and onsite generation calculations,” Applied Energy, vol 84
no. 4,pp. 389–403, 2007.
[4] Abu-Sharkh S. Arnold RJ, Kohler J, Li R, Markvart T,
Ross JN, Steemers K, Wilson P and Yao R, “ Can
microgrids make a major contribution to UK energy
supply? ,” Renew Sust Energ Rev, vol 10, no.2, pp. 78–
127,2006.
[5] R. Yao and K. Steemers, “A method of formulating energy
load profiles for domestic buildings in the UK,” Energy
and Buildings 37, 663-671, 2005.
[6] M. Stokes, M. Rylatt, and K. Lomas,, “ A simple model of
domestic lighting demand,” Energy and Buildings, vol 36,
no. 2,pp. 103-116, 2004.
[7] V.Hamidi, F. Li and F. Robinson “Demand Response in
the UK’s Domestic Sector,” Electric Power Systems
Research, vol 79, pp1722-1726, 2009.
[8] N. Kreutzer , I. Knight, “Social housing electrical energy
consumption profiles in the United Kingdom, ” 2nd
International Solar Cities Congress, Oxford, April 2006.
[9] Yigzaw G.Yohanis, Jayanta D. Mondol, Alan Wright, and
Brian Norton, “ Real-life energy use in the UK: How
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electricity use,”Energy and Building, vol s 40,pp. 1053–
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[10] Firth S., Lomas K., Wright A., Wall R, “Identifying trends
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